The Slim Princess

XIII

THE HOME-​COM­ING

The Gov­er­nor-​Gen­er­al wait­ed in the main re­cep­tion-​room for the tru­ant ex­pe­di­tion. He was hop­ing against hope. Or­ders had been giv­en that Popo­va, Kalo­ra and the whole dis­obe­di­ent crew should be brought be­fore him as soon as they ar­rived. His wrath had not cooled, but some­how his con­fi­dence in him­self seemed slow­ly to evap­orate, as it came time for him to ad­min­is­ter the scold­ing--the scold­ing which he had re­hearsed over and over in his mind.

He heard the rolling wheels grit on the drive out­side, and then there was mur­mur­ing con­ver­sa­tion in the hall­way, and then Kalo­ra en­tered. His most dread­ful sus­pi­cions were ten times con­firmed. She wore no veil and no flow­ing gown. She was tight­ly in­cased in a gray cloth suit, and there was no mis­tak­ing the pres­ence of a corset un­der­neath. On her head was a kind of Alpine hat with a de­fi­ant feath­er stand­ing up­right at one side. Be­fore her fa­ther had time to study the de­tails of this bar­bar­ic cos­tume, he sat star­ing at her as she was sil­hou­et­ted for an in­stant be­tween him and the open win­dow.

Mer­ci­ful Ma­homet! She was as lean and sup­ple as an Aus­tri­an race-​horse!

He could say noth­ing. She ran over and gave him a smack on the fore­head and then said cheer­ily:

“Well, pop­sy, here I am! What do you think of me?”

While Count Se­lim Mala­gas­ki was hold­ing to his chair and try­ing to sort out from the lim­it­ed vo­cab­ulary of Mo­rove­nia the words that could ex­press his boil­ing emo­tions, he saw Popo­va stand­ing shame­faced in the door­way. Was it re­al­ly Popo­va? The tu­tor wore a trav­el­ing-​suit with large British checks, a blue four-​in-​hand, and, in­stead of a fez, a rak­ish cap with a peak in front. As he edged in­to the room the young wom­en at­ten­dants filed timid­ly be­hind him. Hor­ror up­on hor­rors! They were in shirt-​waists, with skirts that came tight­ly about the hips, and ev­ery one of them wore a chip hat, and not one of them was veiled!

The Gov­er­nor-​Gen­er­al tried to steady him­self in or­der to meet this un­prece­dent­ed cri­sis.

“So this is how you have man­aged my af­fairs?” he said in an­gry tones to the trem­bling Popo­va.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: Pop­sy.]

“What is the mean­ing of this shock­ing ex­hi­bi­tion?”

“Don't blame him, fa­ther,” spoke up Kalo­ra. “I am re­spon­si­ble for what­ev­er has hap­pened. We have seen some­thing of the world. We have learned that Mo­rove­nia is about two hun­dred years be­hind the times. They knew that you would not ap­prove, but I have com­pelled them to have the courage of their con­vic­tions. You can see for your­self that we no longer be­long here. There is but one thing for you to do, and that is to send us away again.”

“No!” ex­claimed her fa­ther, bang­ing his fist on the ta­ble, and then com­ing to his feet. “You shall re­main here--all of you--and be pun­ished! You have ru­ined your own prospects; you have con­demned your poor sis­ter to a life of sin­gle mis­ery, and you have made your fa­ther the laugh­ing-​stock of all Mo­rove­nia! If I can not re­form you and make you a du­ti­ful child, at least I can make an ex­am­ple of you!”

“Stop!” she said very sharply. “Let us not have an un­for­tu­nate scene in the pres­ence of the ser­vants. If you have any­thing to say to me, send them away, and re­mem­ber al­so, fa­ther, I have cer­tain rights which even you must re­spect. Al­so, I have a great sur­prise for you. I am beau­ti­ful. Hun­dreds of young men have told me so. Un­der no cir­cum­stances would I per­mit my­self to be­come large and gross and bulky. You are dis­heart­ened be­cause no young man in Mo­rove­nia wish­es to mar­ry me. Bless you, there isn't a young man in this coun­try worth mar­ry­ing!”

“Young wom­an, you have taxed my pa­tience far be­yond the lim­it,” said her fa­ther, speak­ing low in an ef­fort to con­trol his wrath. “Here­after you shall nev­er go be­yond the walls of this palace! You shall be a wait­ing-​maid for your sis­ter! The ser­vants shall be in­struct­ed to treat you as a me­nial--one of their own class! These shame­less wom­en are dis­missed from my ser­vice! As for you”--turn­ing up­on the old tu­tor--“you shall be put away un­der lock and key un­til I can de­vise some pun­ish­ment se­vere enough to fit your case!”

That night Kalo­ra slept on a hard and nar­row cot in a bare apart­ment ad­join­ing her sis­ter's gor­geous boudoir--quite a change from the suite over­look­ing the av­enue.

The shirt-​waist brigade had been sent in­to ban­ish­ment, and poor Popo­va was sit­ting on a wood­en stool in a dun­geon, think­ing of the din­ners he had eat­en at Old Point Com­fort and won­der­ing if he had not over­played him­self in the ef­fort to be avenged up­on the Gov­er­nor-​Gen­er­al.